The Return Of These United States Of America
by Manetheren Beagle
Summary: This is the story of the enclave, and this is what happened after the end. Our story revolves around Andrew Clackson, commonly known as the "Solitary Soldier," and the Enclave's struggle for a last glimmer of hope, and the reunification of the Enclave, the United States of America.
1. Chapter 1,The Beginning Of the Journey

The Return Of These United States of America. A Fallout tale.

The end of the beginning had been more or less 45 years ago by the time of our story, with the destruction of the Enclave controlled oil rig on the west coast. Since then every major campaign the Enclave had begun failed spectacularly, from the oil rig itself to the defeat at Adams Air Force Base. On the west coast, even OLD MEN with ties to the Enclave were hunted town like animals to be tried, convicted and inevitably executed. All stories have a beginning, middle, and end, and this story is no different, but ends can be beginnings in disguise.

This is the story of the enclave, and this is what happened after the end. Our story revolves around Andrew Clackson, commonly known as the "Solitary Soldier," and the Enclave's last glimmer of hope.

Chapter 1.

Andrew woke up, it was not a particularly pleasant morning, though there rarely were pleasant mornings out in the wasteland of the Midwestern commonwealth. They had been on the run ever since the Brotherhood of Steel had decided to blow them up at Adams Air Force Base. It was a real bother trying to outrun someone who had air superiority and power armor, but they had managed so far. Andrew went into formation with the other soldiers, the colonel had informed them of their intentions, to make it to the last great base of operations for the Enclave: Chicago Illinois. They marched for what must have been hours, not many more than a hundred of them, nowhere near the numbers that had been at Raven Rock. At last they got to the prewar city of Williamstown, West Virginia. They spent the rest of the day looking through the prewar maps, having gone on The old interstate highways from Adams Air Force Base, trying to find a route that they could safely use to get to Chicago.

When they camped at some prewar houses, which they had to clear of some feral ghouls, they were able to clear some space to sleep for the night. Andrew sat with the rest of the troops. Everything was silent, it had been this way ever since the orbital blast that destroyed Adams Air Force Base, but more and more voices that would have sounded were silenced, either by the pain of loss or the hand of death. Finally one voice broke the silence, "What will we do next, after we get to Chicago?" After some time had passed, the colonel answered, "We will watch, wait, and continue to advance our technology and prowess to rebuild America." This was enough for the person who spoke up, and he quieted down, the night was quiet from that point on.

The next day held much in store for the Enclave remnants, though they hardly knew it waking up. The morning air was as refreshing as it could be in the wasteland, but no matter how good it was it was time to march. The problems began after noonday meal, when they ran into a pack of super mutants, the battle lasted much longer then it should have, depleting their daylight and slowing them down. The next event that happened was the short exchange of fire they had with some members of the BoS, though they won, this meant they would have to tread carefully from now on. The rest of the day was double time marching, and none of the soldiers enjoyed it, not that the idea of being slowly tortured for information and then being murdered for no other reason than that they were immoral was particularly pleasant either. They finally stopped for the night in an old shack, and most of them turned to the thought that the radiation scrubbers in their power armor would eventually fail, filling the suits and occupants with radiation, this however, did not happen and the rest of the night went smoothly.

The next day went a bit more smoothly, though they were still doing overtime marching, many were unhappy, but none grumbled, they knew this could be the last hope for them. A few days after they left the shack, they got to the prewar city of Dayton, and the next few days were fairly stable. As they approached Chicago a few days later, it became apparent that getting to the base would be hard, they saw something completely horrible.


	2. Chapter 2, The Skirmish

Chapter 2

The horrible thing we saw in the last chapter was a group of the Midwestern Brotherhood Of Steel, and Andrew was willing to bet that even though they had long since abandoned many of the Brotherhood's principles, they would still be intensely hostile. While none of the soldiers liked, or even respected the Brotherhood much, the one thing they respected was that they _tried_ to follow their principles, no matter what they were, but this splinter group had abandoned all of their founding principles, letting in _u_ _nqualified locals,_ _deathclaws, even SUPER MUTANTS AND GHOULS!_ These men were unruly, foolish, and _very_ dangerous, one could only hope... "Hey! Someone there?!" Too late, one of those blasted super mutants had spotted them, there was little room for error, as those who abandon their ideals can hardly be well trusted to do anything, least of all fight, honorably. All too soon they were seeing a whole squad jump out at them, them being the _Enclave,_ one of the most hated groups in the whole wasteland, would hardly help to resolve the situation at all peacefully, but they tried.

"Hello, may we kindly ask that you go back where you came from?" Andrew heard the colonel ask, while he secretly had his own thoughts about the situation " _colonel Autumn might be a good tactician, and he may have been a good ambassador to the late president John Henry Eden, but he is a horrible negotiator to these fools."_ His thoughts were interrupted by the super mutant (who was obviously the leader) demanding their immediate and unconditional surrender, despite the fact that it was almost 40 BoS to 200 Enclave. While the Enclave had been training for some time, they did not have a particularly perfect training, as many were still training when all the events had happened and witnessed first hand what just one completely trained soldier could do as the lone wanderer tore hopes and dreams apart like old cloth. Andrew could see that the battle was beginning, so he drew his plasma weapon, and waited for the moment. As the heat of the battle drew near, Andrew hoped the innocent part of the group was safely behind the main army, but had no idea what would happen.

All too soon the battle was on, the Brotherhood had planned their ground carefully, and Andrew knew that they would likely be a hard enemy to beat. Seeing as he was one of the more trained soldiers, Andrew got quite a bit of the fire, which meant that he was protecting more of the innocents, which gave him much more of the strength needed to continue. He ploughed into a super mutant, firing constantly with his plasma rifle until he had to reload, then with his melee weapon, until the super mutant was dead, then he turned to the others. Andrew used his old sabre, an heirloom, passed down through his family since the civil war, where his ancestor fought as an officer. He could do many things with his sabre that had all but been forgotten, and he was well rewarded by his knowledge, quickly rising through the ranks. He quickly rushed to the back of the ranks to protect the innocents.

Andrew got to the back of the army just in time, he had enough time to reload his plasma rifle and clean his sabre, he called for some help, but it was unlikely that they would come, given that they were in battle. Eight or nine soldiers came to the rear to join him, then they came, the enemy, Andrew felt guilt, knowing that he was about to kill humans, it was simply not the same to be killing humans. Super mutants were one thing, they had long since forfeited their humanity, not humans, humans had a life, hopes, dreams, like his friend Jacob Martin, who the lone wanderer must have just seen as "Enclave Soldier" when he shot him through the face point-blank, after having shot him in all four other limbs and listening to his screams. Andrew swallowed his thoughts and charged, the four soldiers they were attacking were firing on the innocents. They likely did not know they were shooting innocents, nor did they realize, like Andrew had, that the person in particular they were aiming at was Andrew's wife, which made him very angry. Anger does nothing if you do not know how to channel it, Andrew did, he used all the experience he had, he shot two enemies down, put the plasma rifle away, and used the sabre. One of the BoS initiates had very little combat experience, but that did not save him, the other, who had some combat experience as well as some sword training tried to put up a fight, he would have been the next victim of Andrew had he not remembered to check his wife, he quickly asked the initiate to surrender, the poor man simply said "yes" and ran off at a speed rivaling that of an atomic missile.

On the other front, the battle was slowing down, three Enclave soldiers died putting down the other thirty members of the BoS (the other two ran off.) Six soldiers had been wounded severely and one more had slight injuries, they spent the night there.


	3. Chapter 3, The Aftermath And Arrival

Chapter 3

A short while after the events of the previous chapter we noted that there were seven people wounded, and I must now expand upon that statement, as this chapter revolves around quite a different character. Five soldiers, Jack Fife, Milton Ford, Rex Fariss, William Johnson, and Luke Brown received major injuries. 1 soldier had a few glancing blows, but he only got slight injuries. Our last entry is an innocent and she took some pretty heavy hits, her name was Eleanor Clackson. We are not going to get into the effect her injury had on her husband, Andrew, though that would be very interesting, we are going to be talking about it from _her_ perspective.

Eleanor woke up, and almost immediately wanted to go back to sleep, she felt pain all over. She asked the doctor what hat happened, and he pointed the big laser rifle out to her. She understood, but she had not expected how much it would hurt, she knew now why these weapons were so dangerous and decided this was why she would probably not join the ranks. She fell back on the bed, and was asleep almost instantly. She dreamed of better days, back when she worked on the Hellfire Mk 1 power armor and first met Andrew. She woke up a while later feeling much better, she asked the doctor where they were, he told her that they were at the Chicago facility and that they were safe now. She could not figure out how this all happened, but she took his word for it.

What had happened in the meantime was not very interesting, they had sent men in who arranged a vertibird airlift for the wounded, and the rest had come on foot to the Chicago facility. They were still rebuilding and getting set up with the other members of the Enclave there, but by this point any differences had been worked out and they were getting ready to start building up forces. Colonel Autumn had begun to make plans, he had not settled on any so far, but he was thinking. The whole base was busy, it seemed to Eleanor that the only person who had absolutely nothing to do was her so she put her time to good use, trying to think of improvements that would work in power armor.

The next day it was back to work, and there was plenty of it. Eleanor worked on a new power armor frame, she figured that she could make a newer version of the common power armor frame, she could correct some design flaws, like exposed wires and limited protection, she had not had much success though. She also worked on using the other parts of the Garden of Eden Creation Kit from Vault 87 to create radiation resistant prewar crops from those in the kit, she had not had much success yet, though the work on this was going fairly well. She also had to deal with recovery, she had taken some pretty bad hits and would occasionally black out during her work, much to the worry of Andrew.

A few weeks later, Eleanor and her team had success with one of their power armor frames, though it was not much better then the prewar models it meant that they _could_ make a better frame by themselves. About a week later they mad a frame significantly better then the prewar one, it even increased the abilities of it's wearer slightly, enabling them to run faster. The team set out to develop a power armor to go with the new frame, but there were no successes yet. The plant experiment was going well, the team had managed to get a strain of wheat that would be very resistant to radiation, and the mood was fairly high.

Across the Enclave base the mood was getting better, they had repelled several Midwestern Brotherhood invasions and added several technologies to their arsenal. Bad news always comes with the good news, and the fact that they were beating attacks also meant that rumors of the base were spreading across the east coast, and the Enclave were in constant danger of being recognized and attacked by the main part of the Brotherhood of Steel. Eleanor was running into problems with the power armor project, which required her to find a way of minimizing energy consumption as fusion cores would last nowhere near that of current models. Morale was still fairly high through the camp, especially after the leadership decided to give the workers more days off depending on the amount and quality of their work. Shortly after this development the workers finished the upgrades they were making to the facility, which was now even larger and more resistant to radiation that it was when the workers had started.

Eleanor was having more time to work on the power armor, which was her main goal, and the work progressed much faster. They had more success with the second model of armor, which fit with the new frame, but they still had some energy problems that needed to be resolved. A few weeks later they had a success, the power armor was almost ready, all that remained was to test it. While all this was going on Eleanor had fully recovered, Andrew was very pleased and with more days off for the main work force, he was able to see Eleanor more often, and got heavily involved in helping the research team. With Andrew able to run tests on the armor, the research was going much faster, and the power armor was nearing completion. Other things were happening, and Autumn finally revealed his plan for the next step.


	4. Chapter 4, The plan

As the weeks had passed, few people had seen Col. Autumn, while there was some speculation no one could have expected what was actually happening. Autumn had been busy working on his master plan, which he would talk about to no one. He had finally decided that this was the day, the day to reveal his work. He ordered a meeting of all senior officers which began at precisely 9:00 A.M the following day. During the conference he revealed his plan for the beginning of the restoration of the United States Of America.

He began the meeting with the acknowledgement that they had no president and would have to decide this by popular vote. He revealed a detailed plan for the capture of Vault 64, which had been taken over by raiders. What was so special about Vault 64 was the unused GECK module in there, the experiment had been to have much more storage and materials (including this GECK) than most control Vaults to test if the Vault dwellers would be willing to leave the Vault when the time had passed and it was time. Suffice it to say, raiders powerful enough to take a vault would have to pretty powerful, and while they would be fairly easy to "take care of" for the Enclave, they could not let the raiders find out about the GECK. The possible consequences of firing the GECK off involve the destruction of most of the biological life within the sphere, including raiders and the Enclave, ruin what they were planning to do to start bringing life back to the wasteland, practically destroy a vault, keep anyone else from getting a GECK from a nearby area, and many other things. As usual, the only way in was the Vault door, a standard airlock type Vault door.

The plan involved having an expert hack the door, then about 50 troops clearing the place out, but first they would need a scout to figure out the best way to invade the Vault. The scout or scouts would go in under the pretense of being drug dealers, allowing them access to the Vault. With a rough estimate of the vault, they could invade much more efficiently. Only after all raiders had been exterminated could they try to access the GECK. All said, it was not one of the Enclave's simplest plans, but it would do. The vote was 20-1 in favor of the plan.

The only real trouble with the plan was figuring out who would be the scout, so naturally they chose the most skilled person to be the "drug dealer:" Lieutenant Thomas Jackson. Jackson was a good pick because he had the look of a drug dealer, or what the raiders would believe was a drug dealer with some of Eleanor's makeup. The stuff was absolutely horrific, even Eleanor thought it was bad by this point. Eleanor had moved out of that phase long ago however, so she thought her old makeup could "aid" Jackson's performance, he was sure this meant she hated him, why else would she subject him to torture. But he donned it and went, bringing plenty of radaway, both to aid his appearance and to help him with the rads, some stimpaks were in there too, just in case.

* * *

About a week later (including preparations) Jackson returned with the info; he had been able to find some jet somewhere to help his appearance in front of the raider leader on the third level down, which was mostly storage and a workshop. The first level was the entrance, storage, the reactor, and the water treatment facilities. The second level was the holding cells, the Overseer's office, the Overseer's quarters, the medbay, more storage, the Armory. The fourth floor was blocked, it having been the one where the Vault's inhabitants had blocked off when the raiders moved in. The inhabitants had given Vault-tek some interesting results by not leaving the vault when the all clear was announced because they still had enough resources to stay in. The more knowledgeable raiders assumed that the Vault had still been under construction when the bombs fell.

The main Vault door had failed about a year back allowing the raiders to enter, and now it would prove to be the way the raiders left. About 50 Enclave soldiers had gotten together to assault Vault 64, all armed with plasma and laser weaponry, you could almost feel sorry for the raiders. They stormed the entrance, guns ablaze, killing many raiders and shattering morale like a dropped glass. The raiders finally set up a defensive line on the third level, actually wounding a few Enclave men with a fair show of force, too bad they were fighting the U.S government. The Enclave responded by retreating the wounded and pulling back, prompting the raiders to break the barricades and try to loot the corpses of the men they thought they had killed. The raiders walked right into an ambush, a classical trap that the raiders had sprung, not very many survived. The raiders tried one last attempt, each of the survivors getting into power armor and using laser weaponry, a rarity that not many raider gangs could have acquired to be sure but it was too little too late. The Enclave managed one last charge, destroying four of the five raiders and wounding the leader, whom they questioned.

The elevator used to access the final level was fairly easy for the mechanics to fix, and they soon sent people down to negotiate with the Vault dwellers, whose very existence was a shock to everyone. It took some convincing, but the negotiators finally convinced the inhabitants to let them in and soon they had made some agreements allowing the Enclave access to a GECK if they would help repair the Vault. This was a good enough deal for the Enclave, and they set to work, by the end of three days they had made an alliance of sorts with the members of Vault 64, after all, when everyone hates you, anyone who doesn't hate you is valuable.


	5. Chapter 5, The start of the race

Chapter 5

About two months after the events of the previous chapter, and all the men were remarking about Col. Autumn again. Only two months had gone by, and he was back in his office, studying prewar books and making plans. The world had gotten back to work around them, the Midwestern Brotherhood had simply ignored them, and everything was good. Research on the GECK was going extremely well, and they were on the verge of a breakthrough, though said breakthrough had not come yet. The world was peaceful, some believed too peaceful, but all was fine for now.

Andrew had been promoted one rank, he was now a First Lieutenant. Eleanor was almost completely finished with her research into the radiation resistant plant project, and the X-03 power armor suit was almost into production. The base had recently finished putting more radiation shielding on the buildings, and this led to higher morale overall with less radiation to fear. The world looked better and brighter, the Vault Dwellers were happy trading with the Enclave and being given protection. Too bad little is ever as simple or good as it looks, and if it is, it rarely stays that way for long.

Autumn had always been the kind of person who worked well in the military; he was smart, strong, able to kill, but most of all he was a good leader. Good leaders always seem to be hard at work, and Autumn was no exception. As usual, Autumn had a new task for Andrew and his squad, but this was on an entirely new level, this time he was going to be asking them to go into the Texas commonwealth. Texas had a few things that would be of advantage to both the Enclave and BoS could really use, for example, only a few prewar vehicles remained in pristine condition, or even intact, and most of these precious few were in Texas. Another good technology that was in Texas was Anti Radiation Material Suit (ARMS) project and the Synthetic Oil Project (SOP) whose company had a branch of research working on more advanced anti radiation projects and synthetic oil and fuel. Regardless of what was there, they had to think of the journey to get there, which was basically just a race between the Enclave and BoS troops. It was fairly dangerous, so the entire project was a volunteer based project. Of course the goal (at least for the Enclave) was to establish an enclave for themselves in Texas, but the plan was much more complicated than this, and would start with just three people.

Three people would fist be sent to figure out sites to inhabit as near to the Nextek testing plant (Nextek was the prewar company that was developing and testing ARMS and working on synthetic oil and fuel) as possible. Those same three people, would have to locate a fair radiation shelter, though there were far less rads in Texas then many other places but because of spreading fallout there would inevitably be some. Those three people would clean out the area of hostile and live in it for a short while to clean it up and make it into a usable base, after which the main team would be brought in via vertibird. The main group would get the technology they needed and send a small crew to bring it back. The vehicles they needed to restore would then be airlifted using two modified vertibirds to the main base, and all this had to be done in less than a month. Andrew, Thomas, and pilot William Harrison would be the first three men to board the vertibird. Harrison was fairly old—a little over 68, but he was a perfectly good pilot, physically fit, and a good aim with a laser pistol, all things that were required of the third member.

* * *

Gerald Henderson walked toward The Citadel, the main base of the Eastern Brotherhood of Steel. He met some of his best friends in the briefing room; Sarah Lyons, star paladin Cross, head scribe Rothschild, and paladin Bael and got ready for the briefing. Gerald listened to elder Owyn Lyons give his presentation, they would be headed to the Texas commonwealth. The plan was to capture the technology using as much force as necessary to get access to the Nextek testing plant, and use the Brotherhood's new supply of vertibirds to bring back as much material from the plant as possible, and bring back the 40 men they would use on the march. The leaders of this hopefully quick escapade would be Sarah and Gerald, who were the best fitting leadership that the Brotherhood could find.

Sarah was pushing for even more brute force for the plan, but she settled for the one presented, even though it would take probably more than a month to complete, and Gerald had a few problems with the plan taking him away from his life. "I didn't expect to be shipped out west to recover antiquated technology from an old factory for Christmas" was the first comment from Gerald, who had no idea of exactly what was actually happening, none of them did. A short while later, Sarah and Gerald were talking in privacy about their takes on the plan presented by Elder Lyons, they both thought it was open to many mistakes and threats during the march, but that it would do. Paladin Bael managed to get out of this, deciding to guard the gate instead.

Gerald walked out to Megaton, his adopted hometown in the wasteland, he was thinking about his father, he had seen him frozen in the Enclave's hole in the dirt, Raven rock, hinting that he may have been alive. He wrestled with the fact that he had blown up his possibly very alive dad. He didn't give a thought to the many Enclave soldiers he had killed in the blast, to him they had been on the boat with those evil goons, so all of them had been nothing higher to him than yao guai he had all but exterminated, in fact they were lower. He finally decided that he was just torturing himself and went to pet Dogmeat, at least he was willing to listen, _"_ _unlike certain paladins who guard gates"_ he thought to himself. Gerald was content just petting Dogmeat and listening to the dog pant.

* * *

John "Hannibal" Smith (commonly known as "the courier" by folks in the future) was fiddling with Ed-e, his personal eyebot companion as he sat down on the side of the road. He had been through a lot lately, but he was happy, it was one of those times when you feel at home, glad to be alive. He was just listening to Big Iron on Black Mountain Radio, just as the song ended he heard a new sound come out of Ed-e, a broadcast like the Brotherhood and Ulysses had used, not a recording. It was an SOS message, "Any units in the area please respond, we are under assault by enemy forces, coordinates west of 36.0161° N, 114.7377° W." Hannibal decided to go join in the fight, the only people in the area west of hoover dam would be Ceaser's Legion, who was more of an enemy to him than the scare stories he heard when he was young.

He and Ed-e arrived at the destination just in time to witness a massive battle between Ceaser's Legion and men in advanced power armor, he naturally fought the Legion. The battle was ugly, as battles tend to be, 10 Enclave soldiers had died and the help of one good soldier helped the Enclave soldiers quite a bit, they finally beat back the Legion, leaving the rest fleeing back to their camp. Searching the leader, they found that he was Ego interficiam te, one of the Legion's better leaders. Colonel Ethan Summers thanked Hannibal and asked him if he would join the Enclave remnants, Hannibal asked for time to think it over, and he decided to join them after a few days.

Hannibal heard the plans around camp, they were going to be heading west to Raven rock, one of the presidential bunkers. A few days into the journey, they got contacted via Ed-e and told to come to Chicago, that Raven rock was gone. So the Enclave started walking to Chicago, and the journey was begun. The Brotherhood was getting practice time on super mutants for the journey. The East coast Enclave were getting ready to start trading with Vault 64, and leave for Texas. The west coast Enclave were headed towards Chicago to join forces with the east coast Enclave. Hannibal was fit, content, and ready for the journey ahead, he had packed all his belongings and was ready to head east. Far to the south, another group was awakening, and they would soon become another big faction, ready to fight to defend the freedom they had formed for themselves, and force Ceaser's Legion from their lands.


	6. Chapter 6, The enactment of the plan

Chapter 6

Andrew woke up, it was 3:00 A.M, almost time to go, he crawled out of bed, kissed Eleanor goodbye, and walked out the door. Chicago in winter is very cold, especially in the early morning, especially long after a nuclear event when the fallout has settled, though not as much the latter. After getting dressed, finishing packing, and eating breakfast, he climbed into the vertibird. As they took off he dosed off, the ride would be fairly long from here, approximately four hours. He slept for three hours and fifty minutes, when he woke up they were already over Texas, nearing fort Phantom Hill. "Hey, that looks like a good place, set us down over there!" said Jackson. The vertibird set down and they all walked into the morning Texas sun.

Texas, even in early winter is a fairly warm place, it was one of the states that had been spared in the great atomic war two hundred some years ago, and much less fallout was lurking here. They hadn't been waiting very long when a man in power armor that none of them recognized walked up to them. "Howdy y'all, I'm captain Jack Austin of the Army of the Texan Constitutional Confederated Republic, and y'all should come with me." They all pointed their weapons at him, and he kind of smiled, but didn't look too impressed. "I really hope we don't have to do this the wrong way, but would y'all please listen to me instead of pointin' all these weapons around?" Austin asked. They all holstered their weapons and decided to listen to him, though they all thought this would be a good place for an ambush.

"See, we need help, we've only just declared independence from our mother nation; these guys called Ceaser's Legion" said Austin. Having been in a fairly similar situation before, the three men agreed to help them. Having picked Phantom Hill as their main base, they secured it according to plan in record time with the help of the ATCCR men. Ceaser's Legion attacked soon after they had cleared up the fort, and the battle was joined, about two hours later, the battle was over with a victory for the Texan Constitutional Confederated Republic, though with a fair amount of casualties. The next few days went by with massive assaults by the Legion being carried out until the Legion failed and retreated.

* * *

At the Citadel, Gerald Henderson and Sarah Lyons got ready to fly to Texas in their vertibird, a short time later, they were on their way, them and three others crammed into a vertibird together for five hours. They were headed towards the nearest area to the plant that they knew of: Abilene, Texas, more specifically, the fort near there: Phantom Hill. They discussed battle plans against hostile locals, and planned how to clear the place out. They would need to fly to Abilene first though, as it had oil they needed for their vertibird. These were all plans however, and no one could really know what would happen, especially since the Enclave was there.

They landed in Abilene at 3:21 P.M and got to work trying to get oil. They cleared out the area, and set to work getting the oil. Anyone who has ever inspected or studied a propeller engine has probably noticed how much oil those things take up, even more so for a helicopter type vehicle, this was going to take a while. Quite a while later, they were done, but they had to spend the night there. After making camp, they all talked about what they were going to do to take the plant. One of them turned on the radio, and almost immediately turned it off, he had, perhaps thought that he could tune in to Galaxy News Radio, instead he heard something like " _stack arms men, pile on the rails, stir up the campfire bright. No matter if the canteen fails we'll make a roaring night. Here Shenandoah brawls along, there burly blue ridge echos strong, to swell the brigades rousing song of Stonewall Jackson's way."_ None of them was well versed in prewar Texas history of prewar history at all, so they couldn't put it together, so they turned the radio back on and tuned to a different station. " _Almost heaven, West Virginia, the rich mountains, Shenandoah river. Life is old there, older then the trees, younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze, country roads, take me home, to the place, I belong, West Virginia, mountain mama take me home, country roads."_ They could not figure that one out either, so they just turned off the radio.

In the morning, they got ready to go, they ate breakfast, got everything out of the way, packed up camp, and left. The short flight was not that interesting, so the same guy from earlier, and perhaps without thinking of what Sarah was going to do to him, tuned into the station again. " _From the Halls of Montezuma To the shores of Tripoli; We fight our country's battles, in the air, on land, and sea; First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean; We are proud to claim the title Of United States Marine. Our flag's unfurled to every breeze From dawn to setting sun; We have fought in every clime and place, where we could take a gun; In the snow of far-off Northern land, and in sunny tropic scenes, you will find us always on the job; The United States Marines. Here's health to you and to our Corps which we are proud to serve; In many a strife we've fought for life and never lost our nerve. If the Army and the Navy Ever look on Heaven's scenes, they will find the streets are guarded By United States Marines."_ After turning off the radio, Sarah Lyons threatened to make him walk to fort Phantom Hills, but this was done too late, as they were coming up on the fort, and they didn't like what they saw, two flags, one a blue field with a white star and two stripes, (the Texas flag,) and the other, thirteen stars around a big E, the Enclave.

* * *

Hannibal and the thirty-some Enclave soldiers were marching eastward when they came across a bunch of fleeing Legion soldiers, they had a desperate look in their eyes, so the crew avoided them. One of the soldiers set the marching tune by getting the radio set up, he played the entire patriotic playlist the station had, including, but not limited to: America the beautiful, Battle hymn of the Republic, Dixie, Hail Columbia, Anchors away, The Stars and Stripes forever, and Yankee Doodle. The songs raised morale, and off they were, marching across the wasteland, making good speed, listening to patriotic music and holding their flag high. None of them even knew they were marching at double time.

A short while after they had made camp, they noticed some Brotherhood men on the march, they had a short skirmish, but no one was killed, though the BoS soldiers did quite a bit of cursing and shouting. The men slept the night through soundly, and in the morning went back to marching, they marched all day, eating here and there, but overall just marching. The next few days were uneventful, resulting in a short round of extermination with some ferals. When not much happens, that is a good indication that something is going to happen, ant that it was. That same BoS squad they had a skirmish with had evidently been tracking them, as the night vision watchmen had reported.

The Soldier from earlier set up the radio, and as it started blasting out "America the Beautiful" the battle was joined. Nothing was in the Enclave's favor but technology. As the Enclave men ran up the hill to get the high ground, Hannibal did what was almost natural to him by now, he attacked, more specifically he activated the plunger he had been holding. About a second after the Enclave had gotten to the hill, C-4 erupted among the Brotherhood's ranks, staggering the ranks and killing several. With the Brotherhood disorganized, the Enclave soldiers charged and the Brotherhood men ran for their lives. The Brotherhood had a trap of their set to go, but the Enclave pulled back, leaving the timed trap to blow up in the Brotherhood's face.

* * *

After they had seen the Enclave flag, the Brotherhood pulled back, they started coming up with a plan to take the fort. The best way to beat an enemy that you think is larger than you is to disrupt their morale, which is hard to do if you cannot attack them directly. If you cannot attack them directly, then the best way to disrupt your enemy's morale is to convince them that you are much larger then they are. The chances are that if you convince the enemy of that, then they will surrender outright,. However, the worst case scenario is that the enemy feels trapped in on all sides, and thus decides to fight to the death or be killed anyway, making them fight harder, if you are much smaller then them and this happens, then you have signed your own death warrant.

They decided that this plan would be the best, but of course the lookouts found them first. Being an older man did not mean that Harrison had bad eyesight, to be an accomplished pilot you must have good eyesight, so Harrison would have to be the one with the most perception out of all of them, and he was lookout. He spotted the four Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, and immediately sounded the alarm. The same rules apply as earlier, and since the cannons had been poised for firing on October 23, 2077, they were already loaded. A quick laser was enough to activate all the cannons, and you would have thought there were a hundred men in the fort, but of course this led to the Brotherhood getting the vertibird minigun ready to fire. The whole battle was a fake one, a contest of smoke and mirrors, and as such hardly anyone was hurt. The most real part of the battle was when Harrison through a plasma grenade, which wounded one of the Brotherhood soldiers, after which the BoS ran back and Harrison fled into the fort.

Andrew, Thomas, and William all sat down later that night listening to a song they knew quite well, the radio was turned on and you could hear as clear as day." _O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight o'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there, o say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"_ They all listened to the tune, feeling a sense of national pride, their country had survived the worst that could happen to it, and remained afloat while all the other countries were destroyed. They started talking about how to send the Brotherhood back where they came from, a plan that would get them gone, one Idea presented itself, but they all thought it was stupid. The idea was brutally simple, strike where and when they were weakest, at night when they were asleep.

The plan was to use the prewar tranquilizer that they had found in a chest in the bunker, and use it on the watchman. They would then do the same to everyone else, and demand that they leave, they all agreed this would be the most humane option to get them to leave.


	7. Character explanations part 1

Ch. 1, Andrew and Eleanor Clackson.

A short while before their world was destroyed and pasted back together like an old vase, Andrew Clackson met a scientist almost a year younger than him. The scientist's name was Eleanor Peterson, and the two quickly became very good friends, eventually they even started dating under pseudonyms in Rivet City. They soon got married, and hard times hit almost immediately, resulting in the dual defeats at Raven Rock and Adams Air Force Base. The two had a good friendship and relationship through it all, and while they had been dating, there were never any dirty moments.

Andrew is young, about 22 by the events of my story, he is skilled at melee and energy weapon fighting, he has good, well-rounded special stats: 6 Strength, 6 Perception, 6 Endurance, 6 Charisma, 7 Intelligence, 5 Agility, and 5 luck. He is also often able to talk his way out of unpleasant situations, and is good at getting others to lower their prices. He loves figuring out difficult problems, and has a reputation as a skilled person, though he has a few anger issues he is currently working on as well as having bad timing. He and Eleanor are both Christians.

Eleanor is also young, 21, almost 22 years old by the events of the story. She is pretty, smart, and specializes at doing research and repairing items. It has been said around the base that Eleanor could build a working prewar vehicle with a box of scraps if she had rough blueprints, and that is probably true, she is also good at designing and blueprinting. She has less balanced special stats: 8 Strength, 5 Perception, 2 Endurance, 7 Charisma, 8 Intelligence, 8 Agility, and 5 Luck, she is, however, good with a small pistol. She is fairly athletic, and could do well in a fair fight, but she prefers to try to talk her opponent down rather than fight directly.

Eleanor is fairly tall at five feet, eight inches, she has red hair, which is generally tied back so she can work in the lab. She is athletic, often found running when she is not in the lab, which results in her having a slimmer build. Andrew is also fairly tall at six feet, he has dark brown hair which he keeps short.

(Bold is the key for my notes) **Andrew's name is based on one of my friend's names, Andrew Clason, and in small part on President Andrew Jackson, though I didn't realize that while I was coming up with his name. I cannot speak for the personality similarities between either of the real life people and the character except for the fact that both Andrew Clason and the character are Christians.**

 **Eleanor's name is not really based on anything, but I noticed that her maiden name was the same last name as Jordan Peterson, a political figure my sister likes, which is fitting since I got the name Eleanor at my sister's suggestion, other than that, there wasn't much else.**

 **I decided to change some of the material on this page to reflect some changes I have made to the characters, I have also added descriptions descriptions of their appearances.**


	8. Chapter 7, Guns, Blades, and Battles

It had been three weeks, and the plan had just failed, _badly,_ the syringer had failed to perform it's duty and the reality of both sides had dawned on the other. Realizing their advantage in numbers, the BoS had taken the fort, and things looked bad. They had lost Harrison when he flew back to the base in Chicago for reinforcements, and it would be a time before he returned. Luckily, there was something that the BoS had never seen, a secret army if you will, the TCCR had taken residence in the fort, and moved their operation underground when the Brotherhood was moving in, and they were able to communicate via radio with the Enclave. The plan was now to make a coordinated attack from above and below, trapping the five Brotherhood people between them and securing the fort.

Andrew was originally second in command to William, but with William gone, he would have to take over. Anyone who knew Andrew would have known that he was horrible at leadership. He was good as a soldier, and good at leading in fairly stressful situations with a small force, but anything larger than five men would pose a problem for him to command. This is where Jack Austin came in, he was fairly good at leading large groups, a hundred or more men, between the two of them, they would strike, and take Fort Phantom Hill as the first fort of the TCCR. The Brotherhood could not be more clueless about the TCCR, but they had plans of their own, not to mention the fifty-some troops that Owyn Lyons had sent. What the truth of the matter was, however, that neither the Enclave, Brotherhood, or TCCR could anticipate what was happening, or would happen and was already headed their way.

* * *

The West-coast Enclave were marching, they had been for what certainly felt like, and probably was, weeks. There had been some troubles with the maps, and they had no clue where they were headed (C-4, maps, and a large force of enemy soldiers charging into your camp is not a recipe for knowing where you are going.) They were actually headed far south of Illinois, Texas, to be exact. Hannibal was not very alert at that moment, but he had noticed his pip-boy indicating that they were headed south. He really wouldn't have cared, but he couldn't figure out why there were two map markers there, and one of them said Abilene.

Abilene, Texas was harder to identify in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, the sign was gone for one thing. Hannibal and the team took shelter for the night in a building at prewar Abilene Christian University. Hannibal made sure to pick up a bible before he left, those were rare in the wasteland after all. They headed towards Fort Phantom Hill to investigate for further tech and information. The men had a steady march for four hours, then stopped to rest, and _were they_ surprised to find two men in power armor with the Enclave flag hiding out. Hannibal cautiously approached the two, "Hello, how do you two do? My superior wants to talk to you."

* * *

Andrew and Thomas were in their hideout at the radio station when someone wearing _Enclave_ power armor, flag logo and all, walked up to them and spoke. "Hello, how to you two do? My superior wants to talk to you." "Who _are_ you?" Andrew asked, a perfectly reasonable question, the man went on to tell them that he was John Smith of the Enclave, and they went with him. When they got there, they saw forty to forty-five men wearing enclave power armor. After this, they went to speak to the leader, who asked them if they were in Chicago, they said that they were in Texas, not Chicago and asked for their help dealing with the BoS. A few days later, the team was ready to strike, until they saw the thirty Brotherhood soldiers marching into Phantom Hill.

A ten minute fast march had the men at Phantom Hill's gates, the shouts were exchanged as per usual, and the siege began. The TCCR without it's government structure would have been nothing more than a raider gang, a simple west Texas tribe for Caesar to seize, perhaps destroy, but when the call went out for Caesar's Legion to move all forces to Hoover Dam, they refused to follow. The TCCR was not a raider gang, and it was not a tribe, it had a clear three house government structure and a constitution based of the prewar government. Caesar's Legion attacked them brutally of course, but they took the 'fight' stand, preferring to all die fighting then to be slaves to the Legion, surrender was not an option, torturous deaths would await them if they failed, when the Enclave came, their victory was established and they were a nation, now, they would help the Enclave and keep out the Brotherhood, who had already taken a negative stance on the TCCR.

* * *

Sarah Lyons was less than impressed by the fact that there were only thirty soldiers arriving, but she hoped that the package was there. A few hours after the main force arrived, Sarah asked the leader if the package had arrived, the answer was 'yes,' and they went on with their work. The package she was waiting for was the highly dangerous and experimental 'reality blanket,' it sounds like some cheap plot twist from a story, but this incredible thing was a reality. ( **Yes, I'm really doing this, but is this really too much of a leap considering the work on simulations performed by prewar America in the Operation: Anchorage DLC?** ) The Brotherhood had moved this in as a backup plan for if the Enclave attacked and won, the blanket would take the user's worst nightmare and simulate it, if the user somehow managed to get through the simulation, they would instantly become stronger, faster, have better senses, have increased endurance, become more charismatic, get smarter, become more agile, and even get more lucky. The downside of this was that failing the simulation would kill the user in a violent and painful way, and it was not known if this had been resolved by the time of the atomic war.

"Excuse me, y'all in the fort, please make my job easier and just surrender." a voice came booming out of nowhere, "I'm Jack Austin of the Army of the Texan Constitutional Confederated Republic, and if all y'all don't surrender, we're going to have to attack."

Another voice added more to the previous comment; "Thank you Mr. Austin, I'll take over from here, I am Colonel Thomas Jackson of the Enclave, surrender the fort, and no one will perish, we will give you all the time you need."

Gerald didn't waste any time replying, and his angry response could be heard from quite a ways away. "No! This fort will not surrender to the likes of you! This fort will ring freedom for miles around, laughing at the faces of murderous ghosts like yourselves, you think you're so great, see what happens when someone resists!" He paused for a breath before continuing, "I have single handedly saved the wasteland from you dozens of times, I have killed more of your goons than I knew how to count, you killed my father, you murdered wastelanders just going about their own business, you've even killed off entire families, and now _you dare_ to come back as if you have a moral high ground!?" He paused his rant for a few more seconds, "you have also tried to kill everyone in the world including me with your 'modified FEV!' You have been the menace of the wasteland since long before I was born, and had planned to go on committing acts of violence and terrorism wherever you went before I destroyed you! Now you come back and claim to take a moral high ground, _lying as usual,_ I do not consider anyone or anything connected to the Enclave human, here is my pledge! I will not stop until I have destroyed everyone and everything you care about,! Then any survivors, of which I doubt there will be any, will know and see exactly what I saw! The Abyss! I will never stop, I will never surrender, you hear me? Never! Ad Victoriam!" He finished his rant and started gearing up for the battle, this was not going to be pretty, a voice on the other end stopped him.

"I take by your hateful and sick rant that you are not going to surrender, yes, the Enclave has done horrible things for which there is no atonement, and yes we did have a bad leadership! For the record, I was not behind that, and I was also not a high enough rank at that time to do anything about it, but to condemn so many people for the actions of their leadership is simply not fair, and you have done horrible things too! No one doing horrible things is acceptable, not you, not the Enclave, not those Caesar's oh-whatever-they're-called, but if you want to play the blame game, we can play it!" Jackson took a few breaths before continuing, "you say _we've murdered people, entire families even,_ you have not even mentioned the Carter's, they were a family of innocent scientists, harmless as an ant, but that didn't stop you, you hacked the wife to pieces with your officer's sword, then bludgeoned the husband to death with a lead pipe, you didn't even let the kids get out alive! You grinned as you mowed them down with your minigun, you couldn't get enough of it, so you tortured the oldest kid to death. You accuse _us?_ you never thought of the many souls you killed, to say nothing of the wastelanders that you killed, you even hurt your best friend Amata! You tortured her own dad in front of her till he gave you his password, then shot him in the head and heart without missing a beat, she even came running to us for help! Mister 'good fight' never mentions _that_ in his radio broadcasts about how great you are, and evil we are! You have done all the things you accuse _us_ of and more!" He took a glance around, then continued, "you make it a point of pride that you know Latin? Well learn this, your motto is 'Ad Victoriam,' or 'to victory,' I believe something else: Semper Fidelis!"

At this, the attack was ordered, and Gerald didn't waste any time jumping off the fort's walls to attack the Enclave, and it took twenty men just to hold him back, Sarah and the others just shot at them from the walls. The battle heated up when the over one hundred ATCCR men leaped out at the Brotherhood from below, the details of the battle were gruesome, and the battle raged on and on. Andrew led a charge at the gates, he lost three men to his left and one to his right, not to mention the injuries he sustained, but they got the gate eventually. Sarah Lyons was knocked out cold in the assault by a clean shot from the syringer made by Hannibal, and while there was another skirmish at the gate, day one went to the Brotherhood, who took back the gate and forced the Enclave back. Gerald wanted to follow them, this bad move that would have easily resulted in his death was only prevented by having half of the remaining Brotherhood soldiers actively holding him back.

* * *

The next day, the battle began again, this time, a well-placed shot from the syringer knocked Gerald out, and the battle went well from there. Most of the surviving Brotherhood, (twenty soldiers) were packed into the Brotherhood vertibird and brought back to the capital wasteland. the losses were staggering, over sixty men in the Enclave and TCCR. Andrew was heavily injured, and had to be flown back to the main Enclave base, Thomas was hit by a bullet that grazed one of his fingers, but he was fine.

 **I will split this chapter up into two smaller chapters that I can release from here I will go further into detail in that chapter.**


	9. Chapter 8 The Tale of Austin

Chapter 8, The Story of Jack.

Captain Jack Austin was ready for the fight. He had just finished a series of promising talks with the Enclave leaders there, and had just declared siege on Fort Phantom Hill. He personally thought that this was going to turn into an all-out battle, but he knew this was going to be long and rough either way. He made a few jokes to the soldiers, trying to raise morale. He then went into his quarters to get some rest. In his dreams, he saw the story of his life, growing up in the West Texas town of Seagraves, his parents being killed by Ceaser's Legion when he was ten, being tortured by Ceaser's Legion for refusing to join the ranks. He particularly remembered those days, Caesar having him chained to a cross, the newly-formed TCCR breaking him out shortly after he was hung up, rising through the ranks to Captain, being assigned as an assistant to Col. Summers. Col. Summers was one of the toughest military leaders the TCCR had, further happening when Summers transferred him to the Abilene area, and then being put in charge of a hundred soldiers to scout out Phantom Hill. He had no idea why he saw all of this, but he decided he'd better get up.

He woke up at the proper time to take control over from his assistant, and message came through for him to aid in the battle, he exited through the outer tunnel exit after gearing up. He carried a standard sidearm pistol, and was wielding a modified automatic shotgun. Jack could hear explosions and smell smoke before he had even left the tunnel, and he got right to work. He charged out of the tunnel and turned, shooting one Brotherhood knight, he continually blasted the poor man until he ran out of ammo, then stooped to reload. After this, he started aiming his blasts at the leaders. Having eventually run out of ammo, Jack started focusing on commanding the men who had come out of the tunnel with him, eventually leading a charge, though that failed.

Jack picked up a rifle from one of the fallen soldiers and started sniping at the leaders as he saw them. He somehow rallied the survivors of his first charge, and began the second one, charging directly at the gate. It was painful seeing soldiers falling right next to him, It always was, but he swallowed it. As they charged, Jack turned the charge to meet up with some Enclave soldiers. He did not know if they would make it, and he would probably bet against it seeing as how a few Brotherhood soldiers rallied and formed a human barricade in front of him, laser guns ablaze, but he gave it the 'old college try'.

"Aw, come on, why do you get lasers?" Jack shouted as they ran towards the enemy, some of his men falling in front of him. He did what every good leader does in that kind of situation, he charged to the front. No one ever figured out how he did it, and most just chock it up to blind luck, but he somehow single-handedly took out the wall of soldiers in front of him. He then picked up the laser rifles from the dead soldiers and tossed them to his men before leading them to the Enclave troops. They set up a defensive wall in no time at all, and hunkered down, this was going to be a long battle, and many Jack saw next to him would not be there tomorrow.

* * *

Jack's tale is one of loss and gain, hope and pain, just like many people in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. His story began, as most do, at his birth, he was born in the small West Texas town of Seagraves, and had a short childhood. At age ten, his parents were killed in a raid conducted by Ceaser's legion, and he was forced into slavery. At age twenty the call went out to bring all men to the front lines, but he resisted, working with underground operations to fight the legion. He was soon captured, and tortured for a full year before Caesar decided to spare him of further pain. He finally got put out of his misery, a few days after the order, he was to be hung on a cross.

The day he was hung up on the cross, Caesar's Legion was ready to move out, and they left him hanging on the cross, not making sure he died. It was at this time the TCCR came across his only half dead body on the cross and cut him down, he would have died a few hours later if they had not gotten to him when they did. He then enlisted in the Army, and eventually was promoted to Captain and assigned to Col. Sam Summers, who took a liking to him. The two became the best of friends very soon, and Jack was put as an assistant to the Colonel. The two friends were seperated when Jack was assigned to the Abilene area, and Jack made his way to Phantom Hill soon, the rest has been covered.

 **I probably did just tell a longer and slightly more complicated version of the events in his dream, but I wanted to give a more in-depth description of his life.**


	10. Chapter 9, The First day, Part 1

Chapter 9, The First Day, part 1

It was nighttime, the sun had long since set, but the separate camps were still very much awake. The Texans had somehow found enough wood to cook up a good old fashioned bonfire, and they took every advantage of it. Jack had the policy of letting his men have a good time while camp was made, he believed it raised morale, he was not mistaking. The cooks had got gotten their hands on a few brahmin that the Brotherhood had lost along the way to Abilene, and they were hosting a big old-fashioned barbecue with the meat. The men were singing old campfire songs, and the noise was incredible, but still quite merry at the same time. The Brotherhood of Steel people, however, were not enjoying the celebration. There were two main reasons for the barbecue and campfire songs, the first was obviously morale, but the second one was much less innocent, the second reason was to completely and thoroughly throw off the enemy's morale and keep them awake as late as possible. The TCCR was rotating men in and out of the singing and partying, the reason for this was to keep the Brotherhood from getting any sleep, pushing the morale down, but it was also to keep watch of the Brotherhood soldiers and make sure they didn't try to surprise attack.

The song they were going to sing first went all the way back to the 1800's, but was still a big hit among the soldiers. The group started singing, and were soon doing really well: " _Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears, while we all sup sorrow with the poor; There's a song that will linger forever in our ears; Oh! Hard times come again no more"i_. Everybody joined in for the chorus; " _Tis the song, the sigh of the weary, hard times, hard times, come again no more. Many days you have lingered around my cabin door; Oh! Hard times come again no more_!" The men sang the next few verses, some people started piling on wood, making the bonfire bigger, at some times, even the Enclave soldiers joined in. They continued singing old campfire songs all through the night, some folks brought up such hits as 'Pat works on the railway,' 'old Zip Coon,' 'camptown races,' 'country roads,' and 'Ol Dan Tucker.' **(Note, most of the songs on this list are from the 1800s, I don't know that many campfire songs from the 20th century, and I don't think they write them in the 21st century)**

The next morning, the battle began again, and this was going slightly easier on the Enclave and TCCR, but people fighting for their lives will fight hard no matter how much sleep they get. The Brotherhood were giving it everything, they even took down Sgt. Sanderson, one of the TCCR's toughest men. Andrew got slightly injured in the shoulder, but he insisted he was fine and a stimpak seemed to heal it up pretty quickly. The firefight was getting long, so the TCCR got their band together and started playing old music, the Enclave station was getting old, and they started playing different tunes, which didn't do much, but it gave the men a chance to hear some fresh tunes.

Thomas Jackson charged the gate, he dodged all the fire, and made a single mark on the door, he was forced back very soon, but the mark remained. He decided to pull back and strategize, had he not, he would have been hit in the crossfire. The current plan was to charge the gate, but the best man for the job was dead, and dead men tell no tales. Thomas was bent in half over who to put in charge, he eventually settled for Jack Austin, but not until after breakfast. After eating, the men all got ready for the battle, no one was going to give them a rest more than what they had already been given. Jack was to lead his charge at noon, until then, it was straight fighting, with an occasional grenade or mini-nuke. The battle intensified at eleven, it was almost time to act.

The battle took a turn for the worse at around noon, the Brotherhood soldiers rained down fire on a group advancing on the gates, and completely stopped them. Jack started trying to come up with a more subtle approach, but he had to balance that with cheering up the soldiers. A second attempt was made, but this was with assaultrons, it failed just as horribly, but they were able to study the Brotherhood's tactics. About that time, Jack decided they should get sniper fire, so he did it himself, he had bad luck for the first few tries, but his aim gradually improved. On his thirty-fourth attempt he managed to shoot down the greatest enemy of the Enclave after only a few tries: Gerald Henderson. After the lone wanderer fell from the walls, Andrew and his team rushed him into the camp for trail.

The trial was fast, the military court ordered him executed, and Andrew was chosen as the man to do it. Andrew said "I would love to say anything else than this, but I don't know what to say, so I will repeat the court order, you are hereby executed for your crimes against the United States government." He swung the sabre, it did it's job effectively, but not effectively enough, and got caught u in Gerald's neck, so Andrew wrenched it out, and was just about to swing when words came out of the wanderer's mouth: "You are damaging valuable Institute property." Right about then, a figure, very thin and worn, but instantly recognizable appeared from a stealth boy, it was Gerald Henderson, the lone wanderer. "I don't care if you are the enemy, this is important, I must speak to the head officer at once!"

 **I am making shorter chapters because I have new limiters on time to work, namely school, but I still wish to continue putting out good material, this is the reason for the shorter chapter. Let me know what you think of the plot twists in this chapter below.**


	11. Chapter 10, The First Day, Part 2

The room fell silent. A voice was soon heard.

"Son, you'd better have a _r_ _eally_ good explanation for **_all_** of this."

Henderson geared up for a bit of a tale. "Well, this right here?" He nudged the synth lying on the floor, "this is my replacement, though seriously, if the Institute really wanted to kill me, you'd have thought that they would have brought more to it than a knock-off laser gun."

The person who had spoken first replied, "kill you? Laser gun? what is all this?"

So the Lone Wanderer began the tale of his escape from the Institute.

* * *

Eleanor woke up. Someone was knocking on the door to the women's barracks. She rolled out of bed, took a quick shower, dressed, and went outside. she certainly wasn't prepared for what greeted her. The CO was there, which was never a good sign, so she braced herself for the worst. The CO, however, congratulated her on the progress, and awarded her a day off, she knew there was a catch to it, she knew the phrase 'no such thing as a free lunch,' she just didn't know what yet...

"However, this comes with a condition of course, you will have to start training, hard." She, of course, asked the most obvious question that comes to mind.

"training for what?" (As if she already didn't know) _"And there it is!"_ she thought.

"You have been chosen to be trained as a war medic, we've just gotten word, we had our brothers in arms from the west join the people in Texas, and the battle over there, by the sound of it, is going to result in wounded and casualties, now don't tell anyone I told you this, all I'm supposed to tell you is to start training." That hadn't been what Eleanor thought.

"Yes sir, she replied" She headed back inside to work out and reconsider her life decisions.

* * *

Now, this wasn't to say that he particularly wanted to be saying this to the Enclave, he had heard repeated many times the crimes they had committed in the capital wasteland, but he had taken stock of his stealth boys, seen the 'execution,' and decided he didn't have enough, and this was his saving measure.

Gerald Henderson had had a really rough couple of months, and it all started when he was captured. He was headed towards his old home: Vault 101, and encountered 5 people, who asked him where to go. He raised an eyebrow when the leader told him that they were merely travelers headed to Rivet City, (he could clearly see they were a well-trained, coordinated group, he guessed they were mercenaries, possibly trying to fool him for some reason) but he pointed them towards the city and turned to be on his way. His suspicions were confirmed less than thirty seconds later, when he heard a noise, turned, and took a shocker baton thingy to the face. He quickly recovered, shot two of them seamlessly, killed one with Jingwei's shocksword, then hacked one's head off with the same shocksword, he wounded the last one, but the survivor got a bag over his head and concked his lights out.

He woke up in a white room, with some robots running around outside. He wasn't too surprised that there were robots, which were being called "synths," but he was surprised at how fast they had gotten there. From there, things only got worse, they sent in the synths, some of whom were almost indistinguishable from humans, to question him, when he wouldn't reveal any answers, they brutally shocked him, but there were some things that he never told. He couldn't find his gear, he suspected it was dumped, but his gut told him something else. These people were experts, and with the personal questions, synths closely resembling humans, and the aggressive attempts to get into his mind, he figured that they might be trying to replace him, he wasn't an idiot. What he decided to do was play along, and not exhibit any intelligence whatsoever, and through such, cover up his plan.

One day, things were different, he was given a particularly good meal, and no one came in to question him, and he knew this was probably the end. They sent in one of the humanoids, with one of their knockoff laser pistols, to kill him. A good amount of exercise and practice for the inevitable paid off, he managed to surprise it, and with a bit of work dispatched the "courser," as he heard them called, without being spotted by the cameras he had figured the locations of. He was fairly lucky that the courser had a similar build to him, and with some of the skills he had learned, he managed to make it look similar enough to him to fool the guards, scientists, and most of the synths, he also managed to get the brain-computer-chip out of the thing's head, he figured this would be useful later. He had also slipped a bit of folded cloth into the lock so it wouldn't work, he had learned that trick in the vault.

He had been here for at least a month, maybe more, and he had been busy for that time, he had mostly dismantled a camera, and very carefully, he had gotten one of the microphones out of it. He used this, as well as a crude speaker, to learn how the coursers talked and acted. He figured that most should be the same since they were programmed the same as, or similar to, each other. He had practiced similar things, at least with bugging and making speakers and microphones, in the Vault, with his father's equipment.

The rest fell into place from there, he took the place of the courser, imitated it's voice, and eventually teleported out of the place, which he had heard called "the institute," or something like that. He eventually figured out that he was in Boston, (he had learned its relative location in his geography class in the Vault) and started the several day trek to the Capital Wasteland. Before he got there, (a long story he didn't want to get in to) he ditched the courser uniform and chip in a fairly well designed scene with the "courser" having been mortally wounded by his "target," but succeeded in getting him. The "target" was really just a raider he had killed, though this particular raider _was_ being targeted by the institute, not that this was important, but it let him cover his tracks by actually having accomplished a mission. After he had gotten to the Capital Wasteland, he got a hold of some stealth boys for his journey to Texas, after he had asked the BoS, who were thoroughly confused. When he had explained his story to the Brotherhood, heard what had happened while he was gone, and finally proved that it was really him, they gave him a vertibird transport for a distance, though he had to eventually walk after they went a good distance.

* * *

The Enclave present, of course, checked and double checked Gerald's story, which was, surprisingly, true. With this completed, and the Lone Wanderer in custody, the Enclave settled in for the second night of the battle.


End file.
